The Danforth Jewish Circle (DJC), a thriving liberal congregation, a little off the beaten Jewish track in Toronto’s east end, is marking its 25th anniversary this year.
To celebrate, the congregation has published a book about its history, Roots and Branches: The Making of a Progressive Jewish Community, which was co-edited by Paul Axelrod and Karen Robbins.
Axelrod, a retired history professor, said he initiated the project because it was important to document the history of the DJC, a grassroots group that succeeded, despite the inexperience of its founders. “People made up the rules as they went along,” he said.
Today the congregation has a membership of 330 households and a professional staff and offers a range of programs for all ages.
Founding members trace the DJC’s origins to the High Holiday services they attended in 1995. The Riverdale Shul, then a grassroots Orthodox group started by documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, opened services to the Jews living in the neighbourhood.
Marlee Novak, the DJC’s first chair of the board, said those services were held above a Greek restaurant and on Yom Kippur she could smell the souvlaki cooking below.
The Orthodox group was not a good fit for much of the local community, which was largely made up of Jews in interfaith unions. “We wanted a community that would include everyone,” Novak said.
The emphasis on inclusivity was personal for playwright, Emil Sher, another founding DJC member. He and his wife Kathy Miller, who is not Jewish, had committed to raising their children as Jews.
For him, the Riverdale Shul’s mechitzah represented a “literal barrier to inclusivity.”
But the presence of the (now defunct) Riverdale Shul spurred the area’s Jews to organize, according to Jacob Bali, the designer of Roots and Branches.
In the spring of 1996, Bali and his late wife, Claudia, hosted a meeting for people in the community interested in starting an egalitarian congregation. There was interest in offering High Holiday services and the necessary tasks were divided up, Bali recalled.
His wife went in search of a venue. She went to 10 different churches until Eastminster United Church on the Danforth said yes. The church has been the site of the DJC’s holiday and community celebrations for the last 25 years.
The congregation initially turned to the Reform movement to find a rabbi to lead High Holiday services, but ultimately opted to remain an independent congregation.
Novak said the night before the DJC’s first Rosh Hashanah service she and members Harriet and Richard Chartash collated reams of prayers. “There was even a blackout, but we managed to fill 100 binders… People had to share them because there was such a large turnout.”
Rabbi Hank Skirball, the DJC’s first itinerant rabbi, stayed at Novak’s home.
There was somewhat of a revolving leadership door until 2010, when Rabbi Miriam Margles took over the spiritual helm.
“Over the years, we have had rabbis who excelled as orators, chaplains, singers, spiritual leaders, humourists, pathfinders, and activists,” wrote DJC co-founder Avrum Jacobson. “Finally in 2010, we found somebody who excelled at all… Rabbi Miriam Margles.”
Following her ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, Rabbi Margles worked in several congregations in the United States
She returned to Toronto to live closer to her family and her timing happened to coincide with the DJC’s search for a spiritual leader.
Rabbi Margles stressed that inclusivity has been a key pillar of the DJC. “Deep inclusion and the radical welcome is so important to so many members who have felt marginalized or alienated from more mainstream expressions of Judaism and more mainstream organizations,” she said.
Single people also make up an important contingent of the congregation, she added.
Under her leadership, the DJC has evolved from a neighbourhood congregation with half of the membership coming from beyond the Danforth area.
The DJC now holds regular holiday and Shabbat services, meeting twice a month on Fridays for Kabbalat Shabbat. Shabbat morning services are held five or six times a year.
High Holiday services were online this year, due to COVID and there were 200 to 300 screens with about 400 to 500 people in attendance, said Kathy Miller, the DJC’s director of administration. “We have tried to do outdoor programming when we can… People are yearning for connection.”
The congregation also runs a supplementary school as well as a b’nai mitzvah program. There are also adult groups like film and book clubs, as well as political and social action committees.
Currently, almost all the programs are offered on Zoom, but in February, the students will resume in-person learning.
While the membership includes interfaith and intercultural couples, Rabbi Margles noted that the DJC also attracts secular Jews “who don’t identify religiously, but find meaning in Judaism’s cultural values and sense of peoplehood.
“Our approach to Judaism gives our members the tools for meaningful, brave and creative engagement with Jewish living and Jewish learning.”
